BELGIUM AND THE CONGO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13613, 5 December 1907, Page 5

BELGIUM AND THE CONGO.

ANNEXATION TREATY SIGNED. By Telegraph.—Press Association.—Copyright. Brussels, December 3. . The Belgian and Congo Free State . plenipotentiaries have -signed the treaty of annexation.

The Congo Free State was ; constituted and defined by the general Act of the International Congo Conference of Berlin, 1885, and entered into treaties with all the great Powers, by which its status as a sovereign power, under Leopold 11., King of Belgium, was • recognised and , its" boundaries were settled. It was .declared perpetually neutral, and freedom of trade was established in the basin of the-Congo, . while rules were laid down for the protection of the natives and the suppression of the slave: trade. By a. Convention made in 1890 Belgium, to which King Leopold had bequeathed all his sovereign rights in the State, was given the right of annexing ,the State after a period of 10 years. This Convention expired on June 3, 1901,, and the Belgian Government, after considerable discussion, carried a Bill suspending the payment of interest or capital in respect of the loans; advanced by Belgium to the Congo * Free State, . with , a view to their being wiped out eventually by the annexation of the State to' Belgium. The Bill reaffirmed Belgium's J right of option "to ; annex ;. the State, the understanding, being | that the King should choose, the moment for annexation, His Majesty's will securing the State to Belgium in case of his death. ;•.■•'■•